Challenge issued to get behind Daily Post appeal

Suzanne Townsend is challenging every street in Rotorua to hold a canned food collection for The Daily Post 2008 Christmas Appeal.

She held a collection in Day Pl, Otonga, where she lives, and is urging others around the city to do the same for the benefit of the Salvation Army foodbank - the recipient of this year's appeal.

Both food and money are being collected for the appeal to help families in need this Christmas. The Salvation Army expects more people than usual to need help. At the same time it faces a funding cutback so is relying on the Rotorua community to support the appeal.

Mrs Townsend said after reading about the plight of the Salvation Army she decided to do something.

With the help of her daughters and some other neighbourhood children, she went to every house on her street and collected items to donate to the Salvation Army.

The group collected more than 70 items of non-perishable food items.

If all of Rotorua took up her challenge and every urban household in the city donated one can of food, the Salvation Army would get about 20,000 cans to stock up its foodbank. "It's not too much to take a couple of cans out of your pantry."

Mrs Townsend said she dropped off a notice to each house about a week before her collection. While her street wasn't the longest it still took a "good few hours," to go to each house - between chats and cups of tea. She said it was a fun day and she would encourage other people to do something similar collections. "I want to put a bit of a challenge out there for other streets or Neighbourhood Support areas. It would be good to have a bit of competition to see who can collect the most cans."